God’s timing, about which I wrote in a previous blog, is is a funny little thing. When I’m not thinking about it or wondering about it or hoping that it suddenly changes, I don’t notice it at all. It’s just there. Life is fine and dandy and things are working out. I don’t acknowledge it’s goodness because I don’t even take the time to consider its involvement in my day.
But when things aren’t going as planned or as expected…when it’s on my mind or makes me wonder or fills my prayers with hopes that it will change, it’s daunting. When it’s an issue of timing that’s taking too long or an opportunity lost, it’s hard to believe that the schedule of this good and loving God is perfect.
That’s the honest response for most of us in the moments when the minutes aren’t lining up.
We don’t see God’s great plan. We don’t experience his goodness. And the blessings of which others speak feel non-existant. It’s as if God has pushed the “hold” button and asked us to wait or fast-forwarded through what could have been, despite the terrible, awful, tragic repercussions of said waiting or skipping abruptly through time that we experience. Hindsight is not 20/20, according to what we see.
I have one friend who has a close family member on the brink of homelessness. A friend of ours is watching his life disappear at an age all too young. Finances are a mess. Jobs are unreachable. Marriages are falling apart. Where is God’s timing in all that? Where is his goodness, his blessing and his aligning of the starts to make it all work out OK in the end?
The invitation to follow Jesus is incredible. In fact, it’s down right overwhelming. Eternal life. Salvation. Love. Grace. Truth. Hope. Joy. Those are the good things. The things that often first woo us into the love of Jesus in a way that we can’t resist. We see taste and see that he is, indeed, good!
But Jesus never promises that life will be perfect and he never asks to understand. He knows that there will be hard things, there will be moments when the timing is terrible and when there is no tying up the situation with a pretty little bow. It’s not that easy.
And it’s in those moments, we have a choice. We can choose to take our frustrations and fears to Jesus, trusting that even though it may never make sense or seem like the timing lines up from what we can see…that it does, and it is good.
20 years & 1000 words 